中国将在阿富汗扮演何种角色?

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奥巴马访华期间，《中美联合声明》中提及共同关注的国际问题尤其是阿富汗局势。如果美国和中国在阿富汗问题上的合作生效，中国会在阿富汗扮演怎样的角色呢？

The two leaders discussed Afghanistan, Pakistan in the context of regional security, but I mean neither one of them are gonna get into too much detail in terms of what China can do. Now China is the largest single foreign direct investor in Afghanistan. They’ve invested heavily in a major mine that needs to be developed. And they are starting from scratch. So a lot of infrastructure has to be put in place. And China is in a good position to do that, but there is broader, larger security problems that China is not prepared to address. I think the US really wants to feel out where China might be willing to cooperate beyond very traditional economic and society building.

A couple of those areas where there is a lot of potential for Chinese cooperation. Counter narcotics, much of the heroin that enters into China originates from poppies grown in Afghanistan. China has a lot of experience in counter narcotics. They’ve worked closely with countries in the Golden Triangle, Burma, Thailand, to eradicate poppy production, and actually have been quite successful at it. So I think some of those lessons learned, and experience that China has developed might be transferable to Pakistan.
Another one is, you know, security forces. China has a very well-developed police force as we know. And China might take a broader role training Afghan police and helping build the Afghan police force. And now that’s an area where China is a little bit reluctant, but might be willing.

Right now, China has stated flat-out they are not under any circumstances willing to send troops, either peacekeepers or any sort of military contingent. Because it's not an UN-sanctioned peacekeeping mission, it’s a NATO mission. And they don’t feel that it has the proper international mandate. As the US is going through its policy review on Afghanistan, they are watching very closely. I mean if the US isn’t going to remain committed to providing for Afghan security, then they are certainly not gonna jump in. They are not willing to take on this responsibility.

So in some ways, they are also not unhappy with the US being overly focused on both Iraq and Afghanistan. It keeps the US from focusing on other areas such as China or western pacific region. China runs a significant risk from two things happening. The first risk is that chaos in Afghanistan spreads to Central Asia and then provides a direct threat to China. And that could be in the form of direct threats what we call non-traditional threats, increase heroin trafficking, arms trafficking, people trafficking. There is also a threat that radical Islam as a concept might find a home, a very fertile ground in the midst of this massive security vacuum in Central Asia, and that could very clearly cross the Karakoram Highway, and cross the gaps into the Xinjiang region and then beyond, because we have to remember those, you know, Muslim populations throughout China.